Quotes & Sayings About Euphemism

In practice [monetary management] is merely a high-sounding euphemism for continuous currency debasement. It consists of constant lying in order to support constant swindling. Instead of automatic currencies based on gold, people are forced to take managed currencies based on guile. Instead of precious metals they hold paper promises whose value falls with every bureaucratic whim. And they are suavely assured that only hopelessly antiquated minds dream of returning to truth and honesty and solvency and gold. — Henry Hazlitt

What marks the transition from non-sentient to sentient beings? A model of increasing complexity based on evolution through natural selection is simply a descriptive hypothesis, a kind of euphemism for "mystery," and not a satisfactory explanation. — Dalai Lama XIV

Now is as good a time as ever to revisit the history of the Crusades, or the sorry history of partition in Kashmir, or the woes of the Chechens and Kosovars. But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about 'the West,' to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content. — Christopher Hitchens

All euphemisms are dishonest, but many are designed to make life easier — Kate Burridge

Once one understands that 'racial tensions' is a euphemism for a black animosity toward whites and a left-wing construct, one begins to understand why the election of a black president has had no impact on most blacks or on the left. — Dennis Prager

Every now and then a green dot shifted to yellow. A soldier down, their armored suits detecting the injuries or death that rendered them combat ineffective. Combat ineffective. Such a nice euphemism for one of his kids bleeding out. — James S.A. Corey

The text also just grows increasingly garbled. For instance, here it says that our new subway system will streamline the rush-hour commute, but about halfway down, it's a series of nearly indecipherable glyphs our experts insist hint at "non-Euclidian emotions" and "appeasement" (though we think this may be a euphemism for "fares"). — Joseph Fink

When you get right down to it, there is no dignified way to go, be it decomposition, incineration, dissection, tissue digestion, or composting. They're all, bottom line, a little disagreeable. It takes the careful application of a well-considered euphemism - burial, cremation, anatomical gift-giving, water reduction, ecological funeral - to bring it to the point of acceptance. — Mary Roach

In many previously classified documents relating to activities at the base, the words 'Area 51' are conveniently blacked out. There's always a euphemism for it - like 'the test facility' or 'the base' - but never 'Area 51.' — Annie Jacobsen

There should be a new, more honest euphemism. Like, I'm leaving office because I plan to solicit more anonymous sex in bathrooms. — Tina Fey

A friend called the other day.
'How are you?' she said.
The sun was shining, the sky a merciless blue. It was only eleven in the morning but I had been awake since three twenty. I was in bed because, as usual, I could think of nowhere else to go. I said that I was feeling low. Low is the depressive's euphemism for despair.
She said: 'How can you be depressed on a day like this?'
I wanted to say: 'If I had flu, would you ask me how I could be sick on a day like this? — Sally Brampton

see, this book isn't a murder mystery. It's not a heartwarming tale of overcoming massive brain trauma. It's about gamers. Not the suave, Telly Savalas kind of gamer that's just a euphemism for "gambler." The only thing our type of gamers gamble with is their own virginity, and much to their chagrin, they never lose. — Bob Defendi

When we shrink from the sight of something, when we shroud it in euphemism, that is usually a sign of inner conflict, of unsettled hearts, a sign that something has gone wrong in our moral reasoning. — Matthew Scully

Democracy has become Empire's euphemism for neo-liberal capitalism. — Arundhati Roy

Why was "plain" a euphemism for "ugly," when the very hallmark of human beauty was its plainness, the symmetry and simplicity that always seemed so young and so innocent. It was impossible not to think that here beauty was one of the most important things about her - something having to do with who she really was. — Elif Batuman

Dated" in Selah's book, being a euphemism for "had enthusiastic and frequent sex with". — Charlaine Harris

Euphemism is a human device to conceal the horrors of reality. — Paul Johnson

Any euphemism ceases to be euphemistic after a time and the true meaning begins to show through. It's a losing game, but we keep on trying. — Joseph Wood Krutch

We want to create a sort of linguistic Lourdes, where evil and misfortune are dispelled by a dip in the waters of euphemism — Robert Hughes

Sleeping together is a euphemism for people, but tantamount to marriage with cats. — Marge Piercy

I was feeling low. Low is the depressive's euphemism for despair. — Sally Brampton

For myself I couldn't care less, but I have a lover. Not a partner, Susannah, or a friend or a significant euphemism, but the love of my life. And he believes. And I've watched him tie himself in knots, as he struggles to find a place for himself in texts that were written thousands of years ago, with the deliberate aim of excluding him. — Michael Arditti

Kat is sitting cross-legged on the floor in her underwear and red T-shirt, leaning in to her laptop. I'm on the lip of the bed above her with my Kindle drawing power from her USB port - um, not a euphemism - reading "The Dragon-Song Chronicles" for the fourth time. — Robin Sloan

To this day the f-word turns my stomach. Because 'fine' is a euphemism for everything you're scared of saying. — Amy Molloy

Clouds and Rain' is a Chinese euphemism for sex. 'The Bringer of Clouds and Rain' is a lady of the night, a prostitute, — Zahra Owens

How do we know Stephanie's not just watering a friend's plants?"
"Oh, she's watering his plants all right," said Keane.
"Congratulations," I said. "That's the worst euphemism for intercourse I've ever heard."
"No," said Keane. "Intercourse is the worst euphemism for intercourse you've ever heard. Normal people call it fucking. — Robert Kroese

To call yourself 'plus size' is just a euphemism for being fat. Life is much easier when you're thinner. Big is not beautiful, of course a job comes down to how you look. — Katie Hopkins

Tug the pug? Wax his ax? Wobble his knob? "Did you guys hold a Who Can Come Up with the Worst Euphemism contest at some point and not invite me?" he called up — Julie Ann Walker

I don't like the word 'alcoholic'. I like to think of myself as an advanced drinker. — Chelsea Handler

A senior Israeli intelligence officer explained that the IDF attacked "both aspects of Hamas - its resistance or military wing and its dawa, or social wing," the latter a euphemism for the civilian society. — Noam Chomsky

It's often the case that when a critic uses an embarrassingly accurate term to describe what a wrong-doer is doing, the wrong-doer protests: "Why don't you use my white-washed, conscience-soothing euphemism?" Such euphemisms, they claim, help promote "civilized debate." — Steve Kangas

Tact is kind; diplomacy is useful; euphemism is harmless and sometimes entertaining — Julian Burnside

Partner struck me as an ugly euphemism. Euphemism in the sense that people don't like to talk about sex, so they displace it on to some kind of business model. Since I have a distaste for business, I see no appeal to something that sounds like a financial leadership team. — Barbara Browning

I also believe that man's continued domestication (if you care to use that silly euphemism) of dogs is motivated by fear: fear that dogs, left to evolve on their own, would, in fact, develop thumbs and smaller tongues, and therefore would be superior to men, who are slow and cumbersome, standing erect as they do. This is why dogs must live under the constant supervision of people ... From what Denny has told me about the government and its inner workings, it is my belief that this despicable plan was hatched in a back room of none other than the White House, probably by an evil adviser to a president of questionable moral and intellectual fortitude, and probably with the correct assessment - unfortunately, made from a position of paranoia rather than of spiritual insight - that all dogs are progressively inclined regarding social issues. — Garth Stein

Affirmative action was designed originally for "women and other minorities" but the phrase has become just another tortured euphemism. Female conscientiousness and eagerness to please have always made women good students and natural test takers. Jews have gloried in scholarship throughout the ages, and Asians of both sexes score so high on SATs and IQ tests that they regard affirmative action as an impediment. Affirmative action really means favoritism for blacks for the sake of racial peace, but the favor is pure chimera, and so, increasingly, is the peace. — Florence King

'Spoilt' is a euphemism for 'loved.' — James Nesbitt

Frankness is usually a euphemism for rudeness. — Muriel Spark

Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment. — Robert A. Heinlein

When my mother passed away several years ago - well, wait a minute. Actually, she didn't 'pass away.' She died. Something about that verb, 'to pass away' always sounds to me as if someone just drifted through the wallpaper. No, my mother did not pass away. She definitely died. — Steve Allen

We have entered a period of intolerance which combines, as it sometimes does in America, with a sugary taste for euphemism. This conjunction fosters events that go beyond the wildest dream of satire- if satire existed in America anymore; perhaps the reason for its weakness is that reality has superseded it. — Robert Hughes

Would you believe I was in the neighborhood?"
"No."
"Well, how about that I needed to see you."
"Why? Did one of my neighbors call and say my cat's been stalking their bunny?"
One corner of his mouth went up. "You know, that sounds like a euphemism. A kind of salacious one"
"Ooh, big words for Mr. Average Joe street cop," she said, knowing she sounded bitchy but unable to help it.
"Can you take out the angry eyes, Mrs. Potato Head, and just let me talk to you? — Leslie Parrish

The most important obstacle to speed and ease of assimilation, however, is race. In the nineteenth century, swarthy Jews, "black" Irish, and Italian "guineas" - a not so subtle euphemism borrowed from the African country of Guinea - were all seen as what we today call "people of color." These immigrants terrified lighter-skinned native-born Americans, who accepted the newcomers as "white" only when they - actually, their descendants - began to earn middle-class incomes. Of course, skin color does not affect an immigrant's ability to absorb American culture. But color can play a large part in hindering economic and social assimilation: today's black newcomers, from the Caribbean and elsewhere, are often treated as part of the African-American population, with all the associated disadvantages. — Tamar Jacoby

I realized that "being prepared" can sometimes be a euphemism for being scared to let go. How much we carry - whether it is on our bicycle, in our bag, or in our home - is often directly related to how little we trust in life to guide us well, and in others to help us out in a pinch. To this day, I have found that traveling light yields a far richer experience. — Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan

Which statements are true according to the passage?
A) Science, governments, and your doctor should be trusted.
B) 'Comforting her deep into the night' is a euphemism for sneaking candy.
C) The ugliest phrase used in this passage is 'female.'
D) Bad things really do come in threes. — Tupelo Hassman

No, thank you, it's nothing serious. A headache that was not serious was the usual euphemism for a menstrual period, and everyone accepted this without further comment. — Ken Follett

How to repulse a demon (an old problem)? The demons, especially if they are demons of language (and what else could they be?) are fought by language. Hence I can hope to exorcise the demonic word which is breathed into my ears (by myself) if I substitute for it (if I have the gifts of language for doing so) another, calmer word (I yield to euphemism). Thus: I imagined I had escaped from the crisis at last, when behold
favored by a long car trip
a flood of language sweeps me away, I keep tormenting myself with the thought, desire, regret, and rage of the other; and I add to these wounds the discouragement of having to acknowledge that I am falling back, relapsing; but the French vocabulary is a veritable pharmacopoeia (poison on one side, antidote on the other): no, this is not a relapse, only a last soubresaut, a final convulsion of the previous demon. — Roland Barthes

It was nice to call my parents and proudly tell them, "My lady garden is going viral." In hindsight, that may have been a poor choice of phrasing. — Jenny Lawson

They then interviewed us, asking about our love of Qingdao, how we met, why we came. Having learned quickly what they wanted to hear, we answered with the obligatory enthusiasm. Patrick, in especially fine form, waxed the kind of cheesy poetic that put yen-signs in the eyes of the producers. On a seaside boardwalk, for example, they asked him a simple question about the appeal of Qingdao to which he replied with a philosophical metaphor on what he lovingly dubbed, "The Qingdao Mist," a euphemism for the constant polluted haze that enveloped the city. He compared it to the dreamlike state of early love, when all landscapes are a pleasant blur of fuzzy details. I, trying not to laugh, vented my amusement in a wide, photographic smile. — Megan Rich

The terms "idiot" and "lunatic" were acceptable diagnostic terms in England up until 1959. "Imbecile" and "feeble-minded person" were, likewise, listed as official categories in the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. England has always lagged a bit behind in discarding outdated terms for the disadvantaged. When I was there in 1980, it was still possible to shop for used clothing at the local Spastic Shop. That is, compared to the United States, where it takes, oh, about twenty-five minutes for a diagnostic euphemism to become a conversational faux pas. — Mary Roach

Technically,' I said, I'm not breaking any of the Laws of Magic. I'm not robbing you of your will, so I'm clear of the Fourth Law. And you didn't get loose, so I'm clear of the Seventh Law. The Council can bite me.'
The bone ridges above Chauncy's eyes twitched. 'Surely, that is merely a colorful euphemism, rather than a statement of desire.'
'It is. — Jim Butcher

Gorton flu" quickly became a euphemism for pissed as a parrot. — Mungo MacCallum

Finally, "industrial society," to use a genteel euphemism for capitalism, has also become an easy explanation for the environmental ills that afflict our time. But a blissful ignorance clouds the fact that several centuries ago, much of England's forest land, including Robin Hood's legendary haunts, was deforested by the crude axes of rural proletarians to produce charcoal for a technologically simple metallurgical economy and to clear land for profitable sheep runs. This occurred long before the Industrial Revolution. — Murray Bookchin

World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Apparently my subconscious freaked out when I saw blood on the vet's coat and then I abruptly passed out right on my cat. (That's not a euphemism.) — Jenny Lawson

You're not allowed to call them dinosaurs any more," said Yo-less. "It's speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons. — Terry Pratchett

A sense of humor is a serious business; and it isn't funny, not having one. Watch the humorless closely: the cocked and furtive way they monitor all conversation, their flashes of panic as irony or exaggeration eludes them, the relief with which they submit to the meaningless babble of unanimous laughter. The humorless can programme themselves to relish situations of human farce or slapstick - and that's about it. They are handicapped in the head, or mentally 'challenged', as Americans say (euphemism itself being a denial of humour). The trouble is that the challenge wins, every time, hands down. The humorless have no idea what is going on and can't make sense of anything at all. — Martin Amis

Nobody can. I'm writing a new song. It's called 'My pancakes bring all the boys to the yard'. Took my hand and I pulled him up. "So pancakes are a euphemism for. .." He paused and ran his eyes slowly over my body. Prickles tugged at my insides. "Cuddles and hugs?" I barked a laugh. "Yep. I give the best cuddles and hugs in all of London. — L. H. Cosway

Maybe I can braid your hair, and we can talk about our life goals." Sarah wrinkles her nose. "Or maybe you can check to see whether I'm wearing panties or not." "So hair braiding is out?" "Uh, yeah, unless it's a euphemism for taking your clothes off. — Helena Hunting

I've never been a fan of euphemism. — Jo Brand

Perhaps we have been guilty of some terminological inexactitudes. — Winston S. Churchill

In terms of the biology of the planet, development is a euphemism for destruction. — Helen Caldicott

So, you're the man who can't spell 'fuck.'"
Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer after publishers had convinced Mailer to replace the word with a euphemism, 'fug,' in his 1948 book, "The Naked and the Dead. — Dorothy Parker

Faith is a euphemism for prejudice and religion is a euphemism for superstition. — Paul Kenneth Keller

When I spoke of having a drink, it was a euphemism for having a whole flock of them. — Margaret Halsey

I would put How Green Was My Valley in the same class as Uncle Tom's Cabin: a work that leaves an ineradicable "scratch on the mind," to borrow Harold Isaacs's useful phrase. There was another element as well. At a certain point, on some springy-turfed Welsh hillside far above the scenes of alienation and exploitation that lay below, young Huw contrived to part with his irksome virginity. Richard Llewellyn handled this transition with very slightly too much quasi-poetic euphemism, his crucial error being (to my fevered imagining) the idea that the inflamed heat of young manhood could be assuaged only by the relative "coolness" of a feminine interior. One had had a vague hope that the ardency would be appeased by an even greater heat, rather than sizzled like a red-hot horseshoe dipped in water, but at this stage I would have been willing to settle for anything that offered incandescence in either direction. — Christopher Hitchens

Miss von Osterloh had looked through it once during an idle fifteen minutes and pronunce it "quite sophisticated," which veredict was her euphemism for "inhumanly boring. — Thomas Mann

I have a hat for it, actually." Elliott made a vague gesture with one hand. "Well, it's more of a full-body suit, really."
"Is that a euphemism for a condom?"
"No." He marched past me and lay down on the bed. "My mother knitted me a willy-warmer a few years back when we were having a cold stretch. She felt I wasn't like to produce the grandchildren she desires if I had as she put it, frost-shriveled parts. — Katie MacAlister

Although the term dialogue was really a euphemism for scientists trying to kill each other, this format worked very well ... — Joao Magueijo

Deuce glanced at him before turning his attention back to Zane and Julian. "Dare I ask what you've done to deserve protective custody?" he asked Julian. "I deal antiques," Julian answered in a soft voice. Deuce nodded, looking Julian up and down. He turned his head to look at Ty speculatively. "That's a euphemism for 'I kill things', isn't it? — Abigail Roux

I'm waxed clean - hairless as the day as I was born. But don't say 'Tia has no pubic hair.' That's so clinical. Use a nice euphemism. Say 'She's mowed her secret garden' or 'She's cleared the way to the Promised Land.' Because that's what it is, right? — Tia Carrere

What we used to blithely call 'wasting time' was actually a euphemism for the tenement architecture of our lives; there wasn't an ounce of waste in a ton of those lost hours. Proof of this could be seen in the fact that even as we imagined we were killing time with movies and phone calls, careers and frozen pizzas, time was slowly but surely killing us. But who knew? It — Adrian Barnes

Political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. — George Orwell

I'm not psycho...I just like psychotic things. — Gerard Way

The more syllables a euphemism has, the further divorced from reality it is. — George Carlin

How is it possible to have a civil war? — George Carlin

It hurt, and that is not a euphemism. It hurt like a beating. — John Green

Euphemisms are for the differently brained. — Spider Robinson

Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad. I'm just ... well, differently moraled, that's all. — Jasper Fforde

Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. — George Schultz

The man who knows that nothing in demand is out of production soon expects that nothing produced can be out of demand. Not to go where one can go would be subversive. It would unmask as folly the assumption that every satisfied demand entails the discovery of an even greater unsatisfied one. Not to produce what is possible would expose the law of "rising expectations" as a euphemism for a growing frustration gap, which is the motor of a society built on the co-production of services and increased demand. — Ivan Illich

The exact meaning of irony is so narrow that the word is hardly worth using; in its broad, current definition, it's a euphemism for sarcasm. 'I'm not being sarcastic; I'm being ironic.' No, you're not. You're evading the responsibility for being sarcastic. — Richard Corliss

Thoughtfully or thoughtlessly he had left the keys in the ignition, and I switched on the radio. It was tuned to WQED. A local arts reporter I didn't particularly admire was interviewing old Q. about his life and work and personal demons. I reflected for a moment on the journalistic euphemism that allowed personal demons to writers who were only fucked up. — Michael Chabon

"Striking looking." That's a euphemism if I ever heard one. — Ron Perlman

Global governance is just a euphemism for global government. — Jacques Attali

The lyric abstrusities of Auden ring mystically down the circular canals of my ear and it begins to look like snow. The good gray conservative obliterating snow. Smoothing (in one white lacy euphemism after another) out all the black bleak angular unangelic nauseous ugliness of the blasted sterile world: dry buds, shrunken stone houses, dead vertical moving people all all all go under the great white beguiling wave. And come out transformed. Lose yourself in a numb dumb snow-daubed lattice of crystal and come out pure with the white virginal veneer you never had. — Sylvia Plath

Your gift for euphemism continues to thrive. But I think I have heard of such modern relationships. There is a colloquialism for them, yes? They are boogie calls." "Boogie? Oh! Nice try. You were very close. They're known as booty calls." "That's what I said. Booty calls." "You said boogie - " The Morrigan's eyes flashed red for the briefest moment, and I cleared my throat. "Pardon me. I must have misheard you. Quite right. — Kevin Hearne

Her Squire, Celena, Ms. Blood Rite, I-kill-anything-that-breaks-formation, is on her way over here to have a word with you. Since Celena isn't real big on conversation, I'm taking that as a euphemism for 'kick your ass.' (Rafael) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

This cultural, technological, and meritocratic environment hasn't made us a race of depraved barbarians. But it has made us less morally articulate. Many of us have instincts about right and wrong, about how goodness and character are built, but everything is fuzzy. Many of us have no clear idea how to build character, no rigorous way to think about such things. We are clear about external, professional things but unclear about internal, moral ones. What the Victorians were to sex, we are to morality: everything is covered in euphemism. — David Brooks

The Japanese tend to communicate via nuance and euphemism, often leaving important things unsaid; whereas Americans tend to think they're being subtle when they refrain from grabbing the listener by the shirt. — Dave Barry

Asymmetrical warfare is a euphemism for terrorism, just like collateral damage is a euphemism for killing innocent civilians. — Alan Dershowitz

Who thinks they're not open-minded? Our hypothetical prim miss from the suburbs thinks she's open-minded. Hasn't she been taught to be? Ask anyone, and they'll say the same thing: they're pretty open-minded, though they draw the line at things that are really wrong. (Some tribes may avoid "wrong" as judgemental, and may instead use a more neutral sounding euphemism like "negative" or "destructive".)

When people are bad at math, they know it, because they get the wrong answers on tests. But when people are bad at open-mindedness they don't know it. In fact they tend to think the opposite. — Paul Graham

Progressives' don't just redefine (and valorize) deviancy; they insist on renaming it, too. — Kathy Shaidle

What religious Americans might have been slow to realize is that the ACLU's long march through the institutions of America has culminated at the door of Obama's White House. Behind that door stands the one we have "been waiting for," as liberals chanted about Obama in 2008. Obama is the fulfillment of the ACLU's messianic secularist hopes. No president has done more to empty the public square of Christians than Barack Obama. To the delight of secularists, Obama has been stacking the federal courts with ACLU-style judges who read the First Amendment through an ahistorical and atheistic prism, or as they like to call it, the "living Constitution," which is nothing more than a euphemism for whatever they think the Constitution should mean in our supposedly enlightened times. — Phyllis Schlafly

To use a Southern euphemism, our space program has been snake-bit. — Al Gore

Euphemism is a euphemism for lying. — Bobbie Gentry

Euphemism in the workplace does not end with job descriptions. It reaches a pusillanimous peak at the other end of the work process - in dismissal. — Nigel Rees

Kate, perhaps you need to explain to your significant other that he is in no position to give me orders. Last time I checked, his title was Beast Lord, which is a gentle euphemism for a man who strips nude at night and runs around through the woods hunting small woodland creatures. I'm a premier Master of the Dead. I will go where I please. — Ilona Andrews

Now, I know what you're thinking: Isn't this the guy who said, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy"? Well, not exactly. This quote has been somewhat paraphrased and hijacked by many of our nation's craft breweries, and rightly so. It may be revisionist writing, but I for one am okay with it. What Franklin did write was, "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy." Beer, wine . . . come on. Six of one, etcetera. He also coined the euphemism for drunkenness "Halfway to Concord," which tickles me to no end. That, my friends, is fun with words. — Nick Offerman

When I heard you could get a disease from playing with your prairie dog, I thought, 'Wow, what a euphemism.' I thought playing with my prairie dog was the best way to avoid diseases. — Greg Giraldo

I'm with an old family was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury [Massachusetts] that you couldn't even understand them. — Malcolm X